Beacon in 60 Seconds: Nick and Lally

Please meet our Crèche Leaders – Nick and Lally. A wonderful, fun and Christ centred couple who lead our crèche with sensitivity and a sense of humour.

Q. What is the biggest impact that Beacon has had on you?

Nick: It’s been impactful seeing the elders waiting for God to work through them.

Lally: The first thing that came to mind was probably a quietening in my spirit.

Nick: What?! You’ve got to give more than that! People are going to read it and think ‘I want to know more’!

Lally: Yeah, get people interested!

Nick: This isn’t an advert for you!

Lally: Yes, it is! Then people come and speak to me….and then I get new friends!

Lally: When I say ‘quietening’, I mean less hustle – I feel like I have to hustle for things less – things I’m passionate about, things that I want to see happen in the Kingdom, in church, in Brixton. I think Beacon is a place that has taught me to agitate less for these things myself and be more peaceful about what I want to see happen. I’m still very passionate about them but I’m feeling like God will lead us there and I have to push less.

Q. Who is your hero of the faith?

Nick: I’m reading William Booth’s autobiography at the moment. He was the founder of the Salvation Army. He was pretty radical and raw.

Lally: St Augustine is a personal hero. He seems to have experienced and put into words some of the questions and longings and confusions that I’ve gone through. He seems so incredibly real even though he lived so long ago. It shows the constancy of God - that peoplecan have those responses to him hundreds of years ago, and it looks exactly the same now.

Q. What is the worst job you have ever had to do?

Nick: I really liked this job, but objectively it wasn’t pretty – when I was at university, I worked as a hospital porter and a lot of the work I had to do was pretty dark.

Lally: This is more sad than funny but one of the worst things that comes to mind is when I was in an orphanage in Kenya and the kids would share beds and often wet the bed and no one really made them wash their clothes and bed linen. The stench of the urine was so bad that it burned my nose and made my eyes water. I really struggled to sleep – I was in a room with the youngest ones. I felt really bad and didn’t want to make a fuss – I was only there for five days and they all had to live with it.

Q. What was your childhood ambition?

Nick: It fluctuated from owning a bar in Hawaii to being a cricketer, to being a cricket journalist, to being a teacher, to being a really wealthy businessman in a penthouse. It changed every time I saw something that looked cool. Oh, and an astronaut of course…

Lally: I wanted to solve global poverty!

Nick: (makes puking sound)

Lally: And also a ballerina and a vet.

Nick: I think when I said ‘bar in Hawaii’… I was a kid, I don’t think I meant alcohol bar, I think I meant living on a beach and not having very much work to do.

Q. Who would survive best on a desert island

Lally: Nick, because he wouldn’t notice that he was on a desert island! He would just get on with his day!

Nick: I don’t forward plan very well so I’d probably eat all the rations straight away. If it’s a question of who would survive the longest, I’d probably be the happiest but Lally would outlive me.

Lally: Or I’d spend so long planning that I’d die of starvation!

Q. What’s the best thing about leading the crèche team?

Lally: Seeing these little people that God has designed and getting to know their personalities from day one.

Nick: Seeing all the different gifts that have been put into the kids. They’re all so fresh. It’s exciting to see what’s been sown into them and to try and nurture their gifts and personality traits. It’s fun getting to know them.